A Cinematic Refuge in the Desert: Festival Internacional de Cine del Sahara1

Stefan Simanowitz and Isabel Santaolalla

During the 1960s, when decolonisation movements were sweeping the world, there was a joke that, after achieving independence, a country had to do three things: design a flag, launch an airline and found a film festival (Rich 1999: 79). Western Sahara has a flag but no airline and, despite a struggle that has lasted over three decades, it has yet to achieve independence. The closest Western Sahara comes to its own film festival is Festival Internacional de Cine del Sahara (FISahara) (www.festivalsahara.com), a festival like no other that takes place in a refugee camp in the middle of the desert. Around 165,000 Saharawi displaced from the Western Sahara live in refugee camps around Tindouf (South Western Algeria), awaiting a solution to a political dispute that has kept them in exile from their native land for over three decades. Western Sahara effectively Africas last colony was divided between Morocco and Mauritania when Spain withdrew in 1976, following Moroccos Green March into the territory that had until then been a Spanish province. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el Hamra and Ro de Oro (POLISARIO Front), Western Saharas independence movement, declared the creation of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) and a 15-year-long war ensued with the Moroccan occupiers, the Mauritanians having withdrawn in 1979. In 1991 the fighting came to an end and, under the terms of a UN ceasefire agreement, a referendum for selfdetermination was promised.However, despite efforts by the international community, including over 100 UN resolutions, the referendum has been continually delayed by

Morocco, which has remained in occupation of roughly three quarters of Western Sahara. Over half the Saharawi population live in exile, inhabiting four large camps in the inhospitable Algerian desert, separated from their homeland by a 2,500 km fortified barrier known as the Berm. The POLISARIO is Western Saharas government in exile and is responsible for the running of the camps, which are referred to as wilayas (provinces) and named after the cities the refugees left behind in their homeland: Aoussert, El Aioun, Smara and Dakhla. It is against the backdrop of this political crisis and the resulting human suffering that FISahara takes place. Now in its eighth year, the festival was the brainchild of Javier Corcuera, a Peruvian documentary filmmaker resident in Spain who went to the region in 2002 and was moved to act by what he saw there. Corcuera had been invited to visit the camps by members of the Saharawi independence movement who, having seen his first film, La espalda del mundo (The Back of the World, Spain, 2000), asked him to make a documentary about the plight of the Saharawi. Corcuera considered that a more effective way to support this forgotten people was to organise a film festival, thus combining a cultural service with international media exposure. He sought financial and logistical aid from a number of public and private organisations, and the festival has now become an annual fixture that usually takes place in the months of April or May. Corcuera himself was the festivals sole director until 2009; nowadays the festival has three directors. It is this genesis that sets FISahara apart. It did not emerge merely as a political film festival but rather as an ongoing piece of activism. Although it is an arts festival with clear artistic purposes and merit, it is also a powerful political and politicising event. These two aspects reinforce one another. The festivals organisers, the refugees and much of the audience are, to a greater or lesser degree, activists.

At the festival in 2009, the guest of honour was not a film star but a 19-year-old refugee, Ibrahim Hussein Leibeit, whose leg had been blown off below the knee by a landmine three weeks before the festival. Leibeit had been at a protest against the 1550 milelong fortified barrier known as The Wall, which was built by the Moroccans to stop the Sahrawis from returning to their land. In a symbolic gesture he had attempted to get close enough to the wall to throw to a stone to the other side when he trod on a mine. In 2010, two dozen human rights activists from occupied Western Sahara addressed the festival; the guest of honour at the 2011 festival was former United Nations Assistant Secretary-General Francesco Bastagli, who resigned from the UN in 2006 in protest over UN inaction on Western Sahara. The festival is also an extraordinary example of an imagined community in which hundreds of participants from around the world and thousands of Saharawi refugees live together during a week under the same roofs, eating the same food, watching the same films and participating in workshops and other cultural and educational events, temporarily sharing a land that ultimately belongs to none of them, and to which none of them belongs. The situation created by a film festival that is organised in a refugee camp by outsiders inevitably raises questions about ownership and dependency. In the case of FISahara, a series of issues need to be considered. To what extent does the festival reflect the sociocultural norms, values and beliefs of the refugees? How do the expectations of audiences differ and how are they met? Where are the areas of synergy and how are potential conflicts over artistic and political differences dealt with? How does the festival resolve interrelated questions of postcolonialism/neo-colonialism and globalisation? Whilst all festivals are somewhat peripatetic in nature described by Thomas Elsaesser as moveable fests and caravans of film cans (2005: 103) this is even more the case for FISahara, which, in its first four editions, moved to a different camp each year. Although this

nomadic structure might seem appropriate for the desert for logistical and symbolic reasons, it was decided that Dakhla, the most remote of the camps, situated 175 km away from the nearest city of Tindouf, should become the permanent site for the festival. Whilst transporting equipment so far into the desert is obviously more difficult, having a fixed site provides an organisational continuity that was lacking when the festival moved annually. Very little equipment used in the festival remains in Dakhla. Indeed, even the multiplex-sized screen, which is attached to the side of an articulated lorry situated in a spacious, outdoor area in the centre of the camp, is driven off soon after the festivals closing ceremony. A desert refugee camp is perhaps the least likely setting for an international film festival and yet, for a week each year, Dakhla is transformed into a gala of screenings, workshops and concerts attended by camp dwellers and visitors, including an array of widely acclaimed actors and filmmakers. The festivals programme has steadily expanded over the years. Fifteen films were screened at the first edition in 2003, and at the latest edition in 2011 there were nearly 30 films, including documentaries and animations. The number of workshops held during the festival has also risen, from five in 2003 to 12 in 2011. Yet, though the festival has grown in scale and ambition, its aims have remained unchanged. These are not only cultural and educational, but also humanitarian and political. Indeed the ultimate goal of FISahara is to bring about circumstances where the festival itself becomes unnecessary: a solution to the refugee crisis and the creation of an independent Saharawi nation will obviate the need for the festival. In this respect FiSahara is as repeatedly stated by Javier Corcuera the only film festival in the world that is actively trying to bring about its own extinction. Life in the refugee camps has deprived the Saharawi people of cultural as well as other opportunities and, even though the open-air screening projected on the side of an articulated lorry cannot offer the perfect cinematic experience, Corcuera aims to recreate it as closely as

possible: Everybody should have the right to see cinema in its proper conditions, [and] this involves large screens and films on 35mm, he argues. Film screenings might be seen as an unusual luxury for refugees who are entirely dependent on external aid for most of their basic needs (including water, food and energy), but Danielle Smith, Director of the London-based cultural charity Sandblast, believes that culture is an important and often overlooked aspect of humanitarian aid: [W]ithout the spirit which is tied to identity and culture, people have less will to survive (quoted in Newbery 2008: 14). FISahara is a non-commercial, non-competitive festival and is organised through close collaboration between external groups in Spain and an internal committee within the refugee camp. The POLISARIO is a key partner in the logistic planning of the festival. Indeed the Ministry of Culture of the SADR and the Saharawi Red Crescent (CRS) work closely with festival organisers in Spain, who themselves work in partnership with the National Federation of Associations of Friends of the Saharawi People (CEAS-Sahara). The festivals budget of 300,000 (U.S.$425,000) is paid for through a mix of private funding and institutional sponsorship, above all from the Spanish Cooperation Agency for International Development (AECID) and the Spanish Ministry of Culture, via the Cinematography and Audiovisuals Arts Institute (ICAA). Despite the institutional financial support, the festival is fiercely independent, and its directors and organising committee, as well as most of the collaborators, mainly of Spanish origin, work on a voluntary basis. This was always the case in the earlier editions and only more recently, as the festival has grown in size, has it become necessary to hire some extra help for the three- to six-month period preceding the festival. The numerous practical and conceptual problems facing a festival of this kind include having to cater for two very distinct target groups: the displaced refugees and the international participants. While the programming of the screenings and workshops is organised with the Saharawi population in mind, other events are laid on specifically for the

incoming visitors. Rather than competing or conflicting, however, the requirements and expectations of these two groups seem complementary, and the festivals aim is to provide a space for intercultural exchange. FISahara offers unique opportunities for interaction between the Saharawi and the incoming visitors. The latter, whose numbers have grown from around 250 in 2003 to nearly 500 in 2009, reside with Saharawi families in their tents or mud houses throughout the duration of the festival. The festival is open to anyone on a first-come-firstserved basis, and visitors are, typically, fairly politicised Spaniards and a limited number of individuals from other nationalities, most with a keen interest in film and visual arts. Obviously, the possibility that FISahara may be viewed by some as a means of sampling a safe dose of exoticism cannot be fully dismissed. After all, most international participants come from Western societies where ethnically-marked materials and individuals are systematically being fetishised, labelled as authentic, and marketed for public consumption (Santaolalla 2000: 10). FISaharas active promotion of a two-way exchange between locals and outsiders is designed to counter the likelihood of such attitudes, as well as the reasonable misgiving that a festival of this kind could be perpetuating the cultural dependency of the Saharawi on the Western organisers. In fact, despite the undeniable imbalance in the material circumstances of the refugees and their temporary visitors, their relationship during the festival comes close to one of interdependence and exchange. Indeed, the international participants are entirely reliant on the warmth and hospitality of their Saharawi hosts for accommodation, food and transport, as well as for the richness of their cultural and educational experience during their stay in the camps. As part of the festivals programme, a series of visits to hospitals, schools and other official institutions are arranged for the outsiders, offering them the chance to appreciate the ways in which the wilaya is structured and run. Further cultural activities and entertainment include a live-music concert in the moonlit dunes, a camel race, an international football match and, above all, multiple

opportunities for taking the almost mandatory cup of sweet Saharawi tea both with the families and in the main festival arena, where a showcase of traditional Saharawi culture is set up during the week-long event. This display referred to as Le Frig consists of various jaimas (traditional tents), each representing a different daira (district) of the wilaya, and each concentrating on specific aspects of the culture, such as traditional clothing, food, music, dance and literary and religious lore. Its purpose is to give both the international visitors and, interestingly, also the Saharawi youth, the opportunity of familiarising themselves with progressively disappearing Saharawi traditions. But the festival does not simply aim to have an impact on the Saharawi refugees and the few hundred individuals who travel to the camps. It also actively seeks to reach a wider audience through the involvement of the international media, so that worldwide exposure of the plight of the Saharawi people increases pressure for political change. The support of highprofile figures such as Penlope Cruz and Pedro Almodvar, has given the festival prominence, and each year dozens of so far predominantly Spanish actors and filmmakers attend the festival and lend their popularity to the cause. In 2008 Javier Bardem was the most well-known participant, and in 2011 guests included actors Luis Tosar (for The Limits of Control, Jim Jarmush, U.S./Japan, 2009) and Nora Navas (for Pa Negre, Black Bread, Agust Villaronga, Spain/France, 2010), and film directors Gerardo Olivares (Entre lobos, Among Wolves, Spain/Germany, 2010) and Guillem Morales (Los ojos de Julia, Julias Eyes, Spain, 2010). Each year a well-known band plays a concert in the sand dunes; previous performers have included Manu Chao and Macaco. Each year the festival attracts an even wider number of international participants. In 2010 a flight was arranged from London bringing more than 20 British actors who took part in a workshop showing potential Saharawi filmmakers how to work with actors. The 2010 and 2011 festivals were attended by artistic and political delegations from South Africa,

including ambassadors and members of the South African Department of Arts and Culture. In March 2011 a launch event was held in London which was attended by over 150 members of the British film industry including big name actors, directors and filmmakers. Growing international participation has resulted in increased global media coverage which, in turn, has brought political pressure to bear on governments around the world to find a solution to the ongoing dispute that conforms to international law. The festivals actual choice of screenings and guests deserves consideration. The film selection is an ideologically loaded exercise, and the programming of a film festival both reflects and leads to an understanding of the message that it is trying to convey. Cultural analysts such as Bourdieu (1984) have noted that cinematic taste is rooted in economics, class, geography, education and language, and film programmers therefore need to be sensitive to the varying experiences and cultural competences of their intended public. According to the FISahara organisers, there are no rigid criteria for the selection of films, and the titles chosen vary from pure entertainment to serious subjects. There is, nevertheless, a level of cultural and aesthetic policing or self-policing by the programmers, where films are vetted to ensure that they are culturally appropriate for a Muslim audience of all ages. Films that contain sexually explicit scenes are avoided, yet although certain issues are also viewed as inappropriate, there is some room for manoeuvre, as exemplified by the screening, at the 2007 festival, of Fresa y chocolate (Strawberry and Chocolate, Toms Gutirrez Alea, Cuba/Mexico/Spain/U.S., 1994), a Cuban comedy-drama centring on a homosexual character. Despite the fact that the FISahara Saharawi audience is arguably more homogeneous than that of most other film festivals, the organisers are aware that their local viewers are stratified across all ages and possess different levels of film understanding, all of which leads to diverse film viewing attitudes. Among other things, familiarity with one or more languages

besides the native Hassaniya, and disparate experiences of schooling or work abroad, bring considerable variety to individual cinematic expectations and responses. Some of the films shown are made by refugees themselves. In an interview, 22-year-old Najla Mahamed says that Saharawi are naturally good storytellers. Living in camps has forced us to develop our imaginations, she says. From your earliest days you are forced to imagine your homeland. As you grow up that imagined place grows up with you (Simanowitz 2011a). The FISahara festival organisers do not have to worry too much about attracting spectators. Indeed, the camp residents are almost literally a captive audience. Still, a key question revolves around what the Saharawi audience wants: sameness, replication, reflection or difference? There is a tendency among festival programmers to assume that identification is the principal or only reason to choose a screening: people are interested only in seeing work about others like themselves (Fung 1999: 91). The FISahara programmers, however, have a broader approach. Whilst films about the experience of the Saharawis are shown indeed, some are made by Saharawi refugees themselves the festival also aims to open a window to the experiences of others beyond the boundaries of the camps and engender a sense of greater internationalism. Showing films about the struggle of other oppressed peoples in the world is intended to give the refugees hope and remind them that they are not alone. Jermal (Ravi L. Bharwani, Rayya Makarim and Orlow Seunke, 2008), an Indonesian film which was shown at the 2011 festival, follows the life of a 12-year-old boy sent to work on an isolated fishing platform in the Malacca Straits. For the refugees, surrounded as they are by desert, watching a film set in a location entirely surrounded by water was no doubt a strangely familiar and fascinating experience (Simanowitz: 2011b).

The FISahara organisers are also acutely aware of the refugees wish for entertainment. What is mainstream in other parts of the world is novelty here. For that reason, big-budget, commercial films are as welcome in the camps as the more socially committed films that often form the core of film festivals with agendas similar to FISaharas, such as those of the Southern Film Festivals Platform, which FISahara joined in 2009. Yet, even in the choice of commercially or critically successful films there is evidence of an underlying vein that seems to favour stories set against the backdrop of struggle and oppression. Proof of this is the fact that three films by British social realist filmmaker Ken Loach have been screened in recent years, and that, in 2008, his film The Wind that Shakes the Barley (France/Germany/Ireland/Italy/Spain/UK, 2006) won the festivals first prize. The predominance of films fully or partly produced in Spain is justified by the fact that the festival is a Spanish initiative and that Spanish is the second language in the camps (Arabic or Spanish subtitles are provided for all films, and the intention of the organisers is to provide some English subtitling in the future). The 2011 Best Picture, for example, was picked up by film director Gerardo Olivares for his 2010 film Among Wolves. Actor Luis Tosar was given the Jury Prize for the Spanish movie Tambin la lluvia (Even the Rain, Icar Bollan, Spain/France/Mexico, 2010). Logically, many of the films screened have a Saharawi theme and Cuban or Cuban-themed films feature largely in the programme, which is understandable, given the Saharawis close connection with Cuba (thousands of refugees have benefited from free university education in Cuba since the 1970s). There has been no systematic research into audience response to the films screened in FISahara, but anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that films reflecting the Saharawi experience are particularly popular. In his article on the 2009 edition of FISahara, Isaacson notes that

[s]creenings of foreign and Saharawi-made short films depicting refugee life evoked scenes from Cinema Paradiso (Nuovo Cinema Paradiso, Giuseppe Tornatore, France/Italy, 1988) with enraptured audiences clapping to recognisable soundtracks and marvelling at the larger-than-life portrayal of a familiar drama. (2009: AR9)

Similarly, films with storylines that connect with the Saharawi lifestyle also have a big following. If there had been an audience prize in 2011, it would probably have gone to AlYidar (El Muro) (The Wall, Leo Jimnez and Fernando Rivas, Spain, 2010), a documentary about the 1,500-mile wall built by Morocco in the desert, which divides Western Sahara in two. I have been to the wall to protest, but landmines stopped me from getting too close, a refugee said. This film made me see the wall in a new way (Simanowitz: 2011a). In another interview, Beatrice Newbery was told: [t]he Mongolian film was about some nomads, and we all loved it. There was a feeling in the audience of recognition, as we are traditionally a nomadic community. The film reinforced our common humanity (2008: 15). This years festival launched a digital streaming facility that enabled festival organisers to reach out simultaneously to audiences via the Internet. All films shown at the 2011 festival were also available on-line thanks to an agreement with the Association of Management of Audiovisual Producers Rights (EGEDA). From 30 April to 9 May the system, nicknamed VeoFISahara, allowed anyone to register and get a free personal code. They could then log on and watch an unlimited number of films from the FISahara programme for free. Three decades of living a sedentary life in the camps have disrupted many of the rich traditions of this nomadic people descended from Bedouin Arabs who arrived in the Western Sahara in the thirteenth century and integrated with the Sanhaja population (Simanowitz 2009a: 299). The Saharawi are conscious of this progressive erosion of their traditional ways

of life, as well as of the inexorable penetration of alien practices as a result of exile, emigration and the pressure of thousands of youths returning from periods of study abroad. There is great interest among those living in the refugee camps in using audio-visual equipment to document their changing lives and traditions, as well as to give expression to their political demands. Giving the Saharawi access to filmmaking equipment and training is integral to the festivals objectives, as this is considered an important means of empowerment. According to Omar Ahmed, a member of the festivals organisation, [t]he Saharawi need to express their ideas from their point of view, not just from that of the Europeans that come to see us (quoted in Isaacson 2009: AR9). As if taking cue from Benedict Anderson (1983), the Saharawi seem intent on constructing an imagined space based on a shared vision, memory or myth about their homeland. In tune with the contemporary ethos that sees nations as narrated (Shohat and Stam 2003: 9), they are eager to take the lead in the writing of their nations evolving narrative. And, although the Saharawi may be disinclined to see their border existence as one of communicative and intellectual empowerment, it is perhaps nevertheless possible to argue, with Garca Canclini, that their experiences of deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation may grant them a unique and distinctive perspective from which to engage in new symbolic productions (1995: 261 and 239). The FISahara festival, by now part of what Corcuera and the organisers refer to as their larger Cinema for the Saharawi People project, is actively responding to the Saharawis desire for increased access to the audio-visual medium and for the development of a film culture of their own that helps them in their nation-building process. From its earliest editions, FISahara has been scheduling a series of workshops run by instructors from international film schools, universities and NGOs, where various audio-visual skills are taught to the Saharawi. Beyond the yearly one-week workshops, however, the festival

organisers are now also seeking to create more permanent opportunities for audio-visual training. Each camp is being equipped with DVD libraries, video projectors, sound equipment, screens and DVD recorders. Video technicians have been trained to look after each library and a new Film School opened in a neighbouring camp (the February the 27th camp) during the 2011 FISahara. Each year the school will give up to 20 refugees a chance to learn about all aspects of filmmaking and at the opening ceremony on 8 May 2011 actor Carlos Bardem announced that his brother, Javier, had donated 10,000 to help with running costs. The Cinema for the Saharawi People project, in its threefold dimension annual festival, camp-based film libraries and permanent film school is still managed by Javier Corcuera and the FISahara organisation; however, the objective, as the festival establishes itself, is for the Saharawi to gain greater control over it. With the development of a new Saharawi film culture emerging from the workshops and Film School, and with a programme increasingly listing more films made by Saharawi filmmakers, the balance of ownership of the festival should shift in the forthcoming years. Through its strategic choices, FISahara seems to be not only offering entertainment, culture and solidarity to a community of displaced people, but also facilitating the encounter of what Laura Marks calls different cultural organisations of knowledge. In turn, this is, as she argues, one of the sources of intercultural cinemas synthesis of new forms of expression and new kinds of knowledge (2000: 6-7). Through artistic and political camaraderie, FISahara creates a platform for powerful intercultural exchange between the Saharawi and the external participants. It offers the Saharawi refugees some respite from their harsh daily routine and is a beacon of hope for the future, providing them with an imaginative space beyond their bleak desert horizons. The festival also plays an important role in increasing awareness of one of the worlds longest-running and most forgotten conflicts. We dont want

to stage a festival here, insists Javier Corcuera, Festival Director. Wed rather hold it in a free Sahara, beside the ocean. But until that day of freedom arrives, FISahara will continue every year in the refugee camps on the hammada plains of the Sahara desert.

If you would like to support the Cinema for the Sahara People project, attend FiSahara 2012, or submit a film to the Festival, please visit www.festivalsahara.com or contact stefanowitz2@hotmail.com.

Works Cited

Anderson, Benedict (1983) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London, New York: Verso. Bourdieu, Pierre (1984) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, trans. Richard Nice. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Elsaesser, Thomas (2005) European Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Fung, Richard (1999) Programming the Public, Queer Publicity: A Dossier on Lesbian and Gay Film Festivals, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 5, 1, 89-93. Garca Canclini, Nstor (1995) Hybrid Cultures: Strategies for Entering and Leaving Modernity, trans. Christopher L. Chiappari and Silvia L. Lpez. London and Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Isaacson, Andy (2009) A Desert Film Festival Complete with Camels, The New York Times, 2 August, AR9, 151 Marks, Laura (2000) The Skin of the Film: Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment, and the Senses. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

Newbery, Beatrice (2008) Captive Images, Developments Magazine (UK Government Department for International Development), 39, August, 13-15. Olivieri, Federico (2009) The Representation of Africa within (Contemporary) Spaces for African Cinemas Exhibition: A Case Study of the African Film Festival of Tarifa (Spain FCAT, Festival de Cine Africano de Tarifa), unpublished Masters dissertation, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Rich, Ruby (1999) Collision, Catastrophe and Celebration: The Relationship between Gay and Lesbian Film Festivals and their Publics, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 5, 4, 79-86. Santaolalla, Isabel (2000) Introduction. What is New in New Exoticisms?, in Isabel Santaolalla (ed.) New Exoticisms. Changing Patterns in the Construction of Otherness. Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 9-17. Shohat, Ella and Robert Stam (eds) (2003) Multiculturalism, Postcoloniality and Transnational Media. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Simanowitz, Stefan (2009a) Not One Grain of Sand: International Law and the Conflict in Western Sahara, Contemporary Review, 291, 1694, 299-305. ____ (2009b) Riddle of the Sands, The Independent, 15 May, 14. ____ (2011a) Storytelling in the Desert, New Internationalist, 442, 12 May. On-line. Available HTTP: http://www.newint.org/features/2011/05/12/western-sahara-filmfestival (4 August 2011). ____(2011b) Pictures in the Desert, New Internationalist, 422, May, 39.

Notes

This essay is a revised and updated version of an earlier piece by the same authors, A

Cinematic Refuge in the Desert: The Sahara International Film Festival, in Dina Iordanova with Ruby Cheung (eds), FFY 2: Film Festivals and Imagined Communities. St Andrews: St Andrews Film Studies, 2010, 136-50.